The world offers a full force of challenges. Some days that’s as simple as waking up. Others it’s as difficult as opening up to the world around you. The challenge of being vulnerable. Over the few years, my life has taken many turns. I’d like to share my journey with you and how I went from applying for the Peace Corps to accepting a job with Accenture.
The start of my journey began early 2018. There were many series of events that are better left in their own story. But it was around this time that I’d realized I didn’t want to work a traditional engineering job.
This started my soul-searching.
Ever since High School, I’d been considering pursuing a PhD. Mathematics seemed like the best bet with my skills in the subject, but future career possibilities pushed me away from the subject.
During my final rotation as a Chemical Engineering Co-op at SABIC (formerly GE Plastics), I decided I’d get a PhD in Astrophysics, so I jumped right into studying physics. I researched schools and what I needed to do to prepare. During my multiple trips to Barnes and Noble, I would eagerly search for the next book to advance my knowledge. My bookshelf now contains 50 Ideas You Really Need to Know: Quantum Physics, Einstein’s Relativity, and Hawking’s On the Shoulders of Giants to name a few. I recommend the first two. And only recommend the last if you are comfortable with reading geometry proofs over and over.
I researched about schools I dreamed of attending. Stretching as far as Scotland and Germany.
I found programs that felt like they fit me perfectly.
More than anything I was excited. I pictured a life working in research and then becoming a professor. I even decided to “marry” physics.
And then, the series of life events altered again. My significant other and I got back together and he asked me if I wanted to join the Peace Corps with him.
I said, “Yes!” without another thought. Not that this idea wasn’t premeditated, just that I’d already known what I would say if he asked me.
Working for the Peace Corps would give me the teaching experience that would prep me for grad school and being a professor. It would be the perfect opportunity to grow my knowledge further before graduate school as well as allowing me to live life in the great beyond for a while.
There would have been two years of personal growth. Between learning to speak another language fluently to pushing myself past my boundaries, and even more that I couldn’t begin to guess.
And most importantly, I would have had more time to figure out exactly what I wanted to do.
And as a bonus, I’d get to share every step of the experience with my best friend.
So there I went, down a new path with a new world to research. I read and reread advice from others. Looked up ways to prepare for service and the interview. I assessed and reassessed my answers.
And then, a couple months before graduation, we were rejected after the first interview.
This shocked a lot of people and might even shock you.
But we both have the same chemical engineering background, and we both lack teaching experience. On top of that, since we were applying as a couple, we faced more competition.
A few years ago, I was imagining myself living in Southern Africa teaching children science.
As you can imagine, a lot has changed since then.
This first taste of rejection is when I realized we should have made a plan B.
As we fell into the empty barrel of plan B, we realized the only thing next was to get full-time jobs.
Most of our peers had locked down full-time positions either around this time or a few months back.
While I wasn’t a part of the majority, I also wasn’t alone at least. There was a mutual understanding that developed between anyone still looking for their future position and myself. I’d look into their eyes and see myself reflected back.
Over time the positions I saw myself occupying evolved.
Sales positions attempted to lure me into their trap, but either I came to my senses, or they knew I’d really hate it. But I am very grateful to all those who rejected me before this moment in my life.
I even started to humor a few engineering positions. Those applications floated in the deadzone. Only one had taken me seriously, the little company had a whopping five men, all hidden away in a post-apocalyptic office space. With the eerie blink of the overhead lights to boot.
While my applications found their way to limbo, I made a crucial decision for the future of my success: I finished the design and development of my website.
Here are the main takeaways from deciding to create a website:
It will bring you the RIGHT attention. 70% of the companies that I interviewed with completely overlooked my website. They didn’t even give it half a thought.
The companies that overlooked it, showed:
They were more focused on hiring quantity over quality (which is a red flag).
They didn’t want to take the time getting to know their candidates (another red flag). This creates this double standard where I’m expected to get to know my potential employer, yet they don’t need to get to know me, which really highlights how they’d end up treating you.
The companies that did take the time to look at my website, led to 3 key things:
Feeling appreciated and valued, which was the start of my upward climb.
An offer for a job I thought I wanted (and what I had been searching for).
The job that met everything I was looking for to a T and then some.
Creating a website gives you something to work towards. The experience and knowledge I gained during my efforts transposed into multiple aspects of my life.
Now, I sit at the top of my employed perch and tell you how great the unemployed experience was. There was a period in my life where I would have sat laughing (or crying) if future me showed up saying how all the pieces would fall together. I’m not sure when I would have stopped laughing. Maybe never. It always blows my mind how each event leads into the next and then the next. All without purpose, but always with purpose.
Ironically, at the start of my job search, I’d never felt that I’d failed before. Then I felt like a failure every step of the way up until I started working. It even followed me to work for a little while. I’d spent the first few months giving as much of myself as I possibly could into the work I did every day.
I’m not sure at what point the doom of unemployment shifted to where I started to feel a lot better about the journey, but the shift in perspective was a relief. Because I hadn’t been failing, though I did mess up a few times, it was more of a constant struggle. A constant battle with myself and with the world around me.
Little did I realize that everything was pushing me to this day. To this moment.
I am proud to say that I accepted a great offer, and everyday, I keep fighting.
There were many that I met along my journey that were facing the same struggles that I had. And there will be many more. To you, I say keep fighting. You’ll get there.